Mission Vande Bharat: Air India to open bookings to US, Canada from 5pm on Friday

Jun 04,2020

Mission Vande Bharat: Air India to open bookings to US, Canada from 5pm on Friday

Air India will be opening its booking for the 75 special repatriation flights from India to destinations in the US and Canada, including New York, Newark, Chicago, Washington, San Francisco, Vancouver and Toronto on Friday at 5pm. The flights will be operating between June 9 and June 30 under the third phase of the Vande Bharat Mission. 

"Those who wish to travel to US and Canada and fulfil required entry conditions can book themselves on these outbound flights. Some foreign airlines have already carried out evacuation flights & are planning to operate more flights. These flights will also take foreign nationals," Aviation Minister Hardeep Singh Puri informed on Twitter on Wednesday. 

However, he added that normal international civil aviation operations will only start when the situation normalises. "Right now most of our metro cities are under some form of restrictions due to which people from other cities cannot travel to catch flights and we also have a requirement for mandatory quarantine on arrival. We have to wait for the domestic operations to touch about 50-60 per cent and consider the behaviour of the virus and its spread to fully lift these restrictions and lockdown. Till then flights under Vande Bharat Mission are facilitating both inbound and outbound international passengers," he said in a series of tweets. 

Also, the behaviour of the virus and its spread will be taken into account before a decision is taken about international travel. Till then flights under Vande Bharat Mission are facilitating both inbound and outbound international passengers, the minister said.

According to the latest MHA guidelines, international flights can resume in the third phase of unlocking, which does not yet have a tentative deadline to it.